Reinforcing earphone cords?

[lessblue]

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions or tips to reinforce earphone cords. Overtime, my earphones seem to break at the point of insertion from bending, taking in and out of pocket and wrapping. i'm not rough with them, in fact i usually never wrap the earphones around the player, i remove them instead and place them in a separate pocket but still overtime and use...

Example of where it breaks


maybe something like heat shrink tubing?

 

[Sherwood]

heat shrink is a great idea. I would have it overlap the strain relief (knurled plastic thing connecting the cord to the plug) somewhat. You can use heatshrink with a hairdryer, though it takes some time. Worth a shot, at least.

 

[lessblue]

Thanks, I think I will try that. I hope they have some at my radioshack. Is there something more effective than a blowdryer? Maybe add a bit of glue to keep it from sliding off?

 

[Sherwood]

There's totally something more effective -- it's called a heat gun, and it's built for that purpose. seems kind of silly to buy one for one job, though. If you know a DIY'er who does a lot of cords, they might have one.

Glue wouldn't be a terrible idea, though I doubt it'd slide off if you got it on there properly.

 

[earthpeople]

You can also use a lighter or candle flame, but be careful or you may slightly melt the strain relief of the phones. It shouldn't really melt off or anything, but it may lose it's smooth finish and look bad (not that it would really matter if you cover the majority of the area with heatshrink).

You should be able to find heatshrink at radio shack but it comes in large packs of many different sizes.